DISREPUTABLE TACTICS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 542, 9 December 1890, Page 2

DISREPUTABLE TACTICS.

Mr Desmond, whose connection with the Te Kooti affair has not caused him to be loved in Poverty Bay, is finding to his cost that the working class of Auckland are above stooping to electioneering tactics of a discreditable nature. It is men like Mr Desmond that do great harm to the Labor cause. They come to bless, but stay to curse ; their recklessness drives level-headed people either to take up neutral ground or side with those whose views are distasteful to them, but less distasteful than those savoring of Desmondism. The Auckland Star of Wednesday last gives him a well deserved dressing down for the electioneering tactics which he used. The Star says :—“We should be very sorry indeed if the cause of Liberalism or of the working classes were in any respect identified in the eyes of intelligent men with the tactics that have been pursued by Mr Arthur Desmond, who suddenlymade his debut in Auckland in the character of a labor agitator during the late strike. We have the very best reason to know that some of the most prominent leaders of the labor party regard Mr Desmond’s wild tirades and reckless misrepresentations as doing more injury to their cause than a dozen Employers’ Associations could accomplish. The total failure of the labor party to -support him is confessed in the last issue of the Tribune, in which, while announcing that he ‘has resolved to cease publication after the elections if no one comes forward to assist him in some practical businesslike manner,’ Mr Desmond goes on to expend on the working.men of Auckland a share of the abuse which he so liberally bestows upon all opponents. He declares that ‘ they have not even the decency to feed and clothe the man who fights for them.’ The working men of Auckland have suddenly fallen from their lofty height in Desmond’s estimation because, forsooth, they failed to maintain him in the capacity of paid agitator, and he proceeds to heap contumely upon their heads in the following choice passages :—

No man in bia common senses could expect gratitude from the poor spirited slaves who live in and around Auckland, because years of poverty have nearly crushed all nobility of sentiment out of them. He who would take up the cause of the poor must be prepared for oon'umely and hatred from the rich and powerful, as well as desertion in the hour of need on the part of the slavish spiritless populace. “Dr Wallis has never ventured upon anything so scandalous as this. Such arrant drivel might, however, be passed over safely with contempt but some disclaimer appears to be necessary lest the figure cut by Mr Desmond at Mr Adam Porter’s meeting last night should so thoroughly disgust the moderate and more intelligent of the citizens belonging to the Liberal party, as to cause them, by their votes, to place Mr Porter and his colleague, Dr Wallis at the head of the poll. If this is the revenge Mr Desmond intends to wreak upon the labour party for their failure to reward his services, and their rejection of his own pretensions to candidature in their interests during the present elections, for which he fought tooth and nail, we believe he will still be thwarted,”

The Star goes on to thoroughly expose the tactics employed by Desmond, and saying that though the shock to the public conscience by the attempted imposture would be severe, it yet believed that the electors would discriminate between the unwarrantable action of irresponsible persons wfio thrust themselves upon every worthy cause, and the cause itself. The journal also exposes a most impudent plagiarism of which Desmond appears to have been guilty. We should not have deemed the man worthy of notice were it not that an attempt has been locally made to prove that Desmond is acknowledged as a leader bn the L,abPf side.